


Empty Spaces

by Oreramar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura runs a children's center/daycare, Gen, Modern AU, all so tiny, but they are there, childcare au, less epic fighting and intrigue and more slice of life, most of the kids are only implied to be present and aren't mentioned by name, no space au, or the start of it at least, shiro's disabled ex-military, shiro-focused, the Galra are a tech company
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7536193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oreramar/pseuds/Oreramar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takashi Shirogane was a soldier, and then, suddenly, he couldn't be one anymore. Down a career, an arm, and a great deal of luck, he gradually found himself a new place in the world. Sometimes, life surprises you; he'd certainly never imagined a future in childcare before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Spaces

One moment, peace. Blue sky, clear air, the delight of Dr. Holt as he talks about the latest samples they pulled from deep Antarctic ice last winter, what they mean for the study of life and how it forms, how it _works_. It is the easiest escort duty Shiro has ever had, walking with a man who had somehow become friend and mentor and nearly honorary family, and so perhaps he lets his guard down.

Perhaps no guard would have been enough.

The next moment, such light that it is darkness, such heat that it is cold, such sound that it is silence. He is aware of nothing, and then he knows only that he is on the ground, he feels nothing, he can barely see, and his ears are filled with a high, steady ringing. Someone is lying nearby. He can’t see who, can’t think, can’t turn his head or reach out.

Shapes cross his vision. People. They surround the other, lift them, carry them away. Shiro waits. Thinks, _help._ He still can’t move or feel or hear.

They don’t come for him.

But the darkness does.

 

-

 

Waking up hurt. He wanted the darkness back, but it was gone, driven away by flares of pain up his right side and shoulder and an ache set deep inside his bones. Something nearby beeped steadily. He opened his eyes to hospital white.

For a moment, Shiro just breathed. Then he remembered, and catalogued, and assessed.

An explosion. Dr. Holt. He would find out what had happened soon, or so he hoped. The hospital staff might not tell him anything - they might not even know enough to tell - but he could at least ask if the doctor had been found with him, if the vague memory he has of people picking someone up from the wreckage was correct.

He assumed he’d been under painkillers, and that these had worn off while he was unconscious. He couldn’t begin to accurately catalogue his injuries - bruises, broken bones, lacerations from shrapnel, possibly some burns from the heat or road rash if he’d gotten thrown across asphalt - but he knew that it hurt now, and that it was getting worse, from the bandage wound tight and heavy across the center of his face to an infuriating itch on his right wrist. He tried to rub it against the sheets while he looked around for a button to alert a nurse.

His arm didn’t respond.

He glanced down.

Empty.

It wasn’t real at first. That was someone else’s shoulder, someone else’s arm ending in swathes of bandages and empty air halfway down the bicep. It couldn’t be his. He has a right arm.

His wrist itched.

His wrist was gone.

It couldn’t be real. None of this was real. He was dreaming - he was trapped in the darkness again, the darkness brought on by too much light, light that seeped brighter and brighter into the corners of his eyes as he stared at his hand, where his hand should be, invisible and empty.

No air. The beeping rose, shrill and fast, distant in his ears. They were starting to ring again.

_Light, heat, sound, overwhelming everything. The world shook and moved and left him behind, pained and alone and bleeding, bleeding into the black and no one came._

There were hands on his left shoulder. Sounds beyond the ringing. They were speaking to him. _He needs to breathe_.

But it was empty.

 

-

 

Shiro sat in his apartment, his laptop open in front of him, phone set alongside it, a crisp white letter in his left hand. His opposite shirt sleeve was pinned up at the shoulder, as neatly as he could make it. He’s had a lot of practice. Months of it.

_Mr. Shirogane_ , the letter started. He hadn’t held a rank in months either.

_Honorable Discharge,_ read another crisp piece of paper, all that time ago. _Medical. RE-4._

All those papers, signed and stamped - Shiro’s signature had been illegible and foreign to his eyes, smeared by an awkward left hand unused to forming letters, but it was all he had now - signed and stamped and filed away.

This new letter couldn’t get him his old life back. That door was closed forever.

_…new procedures and technology capable of returning a recipient’s mobility and dexterity to a point near or equal to what they had in the past…_

He dropped the letter next to the laptop, tapped into his email. Typing was still a slow process, though not as laborious as it once had been. Two new messages, both automated - one an acknowledgement of his online application to a position in a nearby city, the other a rejection notice for another application. At this point he couldn’t tell if the rejections were purely because of the economy or because they had seen the military medical discharge in his employment history and thought him somehow lacking. He tried not to be pessimistic about things - lots of people were having difficulty on the market right now - but it was getting harder to hope.

Maybe...

_…highly experimental in nature…informed consent…no charge for services…_

His fingers nudged the page, pushing the letterhead into a shaft of light streaming through the small, high window. It was late afternoon and summer-bright; it washed the company logo and name out entirely. Shiro picked up his phone, held it in his hand just to feel the weight of it.

It was a risk, but he knew risks. He had lived with them, understood and accepted them, and he’d had a lot more to lose then than he did now.

He thumbed his phone on and dialed the number from memory. This time he hit send. It picked up after two rings.

“Galra Tech Corporation, main office, how may I help you?”

Shiro took a breath before the plunge.

“This is Takashi Shirogane, and I’m calling about your experimental prosthetics offer. How can I learn more?”

 

-

 

The facilities were new - vast, gleaming, modern - with everything on-site from offices to surgery to the mechanics to recovery and physical therapy.

“If you choose to enter the program, you’ll be allotted a room on-site for the duration of your prep, surgery, and recovery,” said his tour guide, showing him quickly through what appeared to be a cross between hospital hallways and something off of a modern Star Trek spaceship set. “Galra Tech is employing top-tier prosthetic surgeons, engineers, and physical therapists for this project.”

“Sounds promising,” Shiro admitted. “But it is still experimental. What happens if something goes wrong?”

“Our technicians are confident in the principle of the schematics, and our in-house tests have all gone very well - it’s only considered experimental at this point because we haven’t gotten our products out there into the world for day to day use. Still, we do have some compensation packages drafted for any theoretical worst-case scenarios, or even just in case of someone’s body simply rejecting our technology. These are included in the paperwork; I can show you back at the office after we’re done here.”

They reached a door at the end of the hallway, and it opened before them to reveal a thin, pointed, almost ageless woman with long white hair pulled back in a braid. She wore a severe expression and a lab coat.

“Good morning, Doctor,” chirped the office girl. “This is Mr. Shirogane - he’s thinking of entering our program.”

The doctor’s eyes flicked to Shiro’s pinned-up sleeve.

“Of course he is,” she said.

“Mr. Shirogane, this is Dr. Haggar, our chief surgeon and the driving force behind Galra’s new prosthetics work.”

“Former military?” Dr. Haggar asked. She didn’t take the hand Shiro offers; he dropped it after an awkward moment.

“I…yes. How did you know?”

“The way you stand. I’ve seen your type before.” She looked him over once and then nodded, almost in approval. “You’ll probably do well in my program. I suspect you have the determination and willpower to see it through. I hope to see you here again soon in that capacity; it would be such a waste otherwise. Good day.”

Shiro waited until he was certain they were out of earshot before speaking.

“She seemed…sharp.”

“The doctor is the best in her field - a real genius. But, yes, she can be a little prickly,” his guide agreed. “She expects the best of herself and everyone around. Though, honestly, I might be a little defensive as well if my last name was something like Haggar - you can probably imagine the jokes. All right, now through here we have our gymnasium and physical therapy rooms…”

At the end of the tour, Shiro thought this could almost be too good to be true. The only downside he could see was the fact that he’d have to make his own arrangements for his apartment and belongings for the months allotted to recovery, and that, compared to the potential costs of doing nothing, or of dealing with less-capable but more certain prosthetics from other companies, seemed like very little indeed.

“This program must be so expensive,” he said after looking over the paperwork for it. “Why is Galra Tech putting so much into it for so little?”

“Galra Tech Corporation is dedicated to changing the future,” recited the office girl, “even if it’s just one life at a time. Besides, this is the last step in the process, and I’m pretty sure there are a few government grants involved, especially in cases of former servicemen like you. And once these final tests are done, I think they plan on actually marketing this.”

“Last call for guinea pigs,” Shiro remarked with vague amusement. He flipped through the paperwork packet again until he reached the legal waiver agreeing to the use of experimental procedures and technology. There, he weighed his options.

On the one hand, the status quo: he stuck it out with one arm for the rest of his life. It wasn’t going particularly well so far, but things could always turn around. Others had managed; he could too.

On another hand, what might be the safer path to a prosthetic: if he found another company, something with a model which would at least fill the gap and help a little, but which would be less sophisticated, less capable of a full range of movement between his elbow, his wrist, and his fingers. Technology was ever-advancing, of course, but as far as he’d seen in his research nothing came close to the near-miracles Galra Tech had achieved.

And finally, on the waiver in front of him…risk, but potential reward in the form of an arm just as strong, dexterous, and capable as his other.

He’d signed his old life away when he’d joined the military, then signed his military life away for whatever it was he had now.

“Third time’s the charm,” he muttered - hoped, prayed - and picked up a pen.

 

-

 

His name was Takashi Shirogane, he was in his mid-twenties with little more than an army pension and a paperwork trail to his name, and he had very little memory of the last several months.

“Complications,” they’d said. “Neural overcompensation, adjusting to foreign impulses. Not a rejection. No permanent damage. It may get better with time, but definitely not worse.” They’d pointed at his waivers and forms, declared him fit for release, and sent him on his way with a new arm that whirred and hummed and reacted to his every thought as quickly as he had it.

He must have worked extensively to become so in-tune with something which was essentially just wires and carbon fiber strapped to his body. He couldn’t recall a thing.

Complications.

He remembered meeting Doctor Haggar, before he signed. There is a shudder of something like dread attached to the memory now. He’s not sure why. Maybe he woke up during surgery, as part of the complications. Maybe it had hurt. There was a shock of white in his hair he was too young to have.

There was no use contemplating it now. It was in the past; he’d signed his life into something new, into whatever this was or would prove to be.

He put his hand into his pocket for his apartment key - his right hand. His face cracked into an uneven attempt at a smile.

Maybe this wasn’t so bad in spite of ‘complications.’

 

-

 

Rejection, rejection, rejection.

Most places didn’t even give that much - just silence, stretching on for days and weeks until it was obvious there wouldn’t be so much as a form letter or call to tell him they’d decided to go with another candidate, someone more qualified for their needs, _we’re sorry but the position has already been filled_.

He’d gotten two interviews in three months, and no job out of either. At this point he was living off of his savings and his pension - hardly a sustainable future. He’d given up on applying for jobs solely because he wanted them or thought himself suited to them and was down to applying to anything with a “Now Hiring” sign in the window.

This time, he knew it was the arm.

Galra Tech had gotten some bad press recently based on the company’s somewhat shady past in weapons manufacturing, and their work was distinct, instantly recognizable. People looked at Shiro’s arm and saw Galra, and Galra was taboo.

The arm itself still worked like a dream, but sometimes Shiro had nightmares of it taking on a life of its own and strangling him with a twisted echo of his own words - _you signed your life away for this._

It was the day after one of these nights when he ran into Mrs. Holt at the grocery store. He recognized her instantly. The kids weren’t with her, and Shiro wondered how old they would be now. Sam would have told him, showed him pictures, been so proud - the thought hit him like a hammer the same instant Mrs. Holt recognized him in turn.

“Shiro!” she said, sounding mostly surprised. There was something else as well, something he couldn’t identify. Her eyes darted over him. He wondered, briefly, if she was seeing the man who let her husband get killed (or worse; there was no body, but no leads, no other explanations, and it had been so long now)…or if she even knew he’d been with him at the time.

“How have you been? It’s been so long - are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said. The reply was automatic, as was the follow-up: “And you?”

“I’m getting there,” she said with a small, not-quite-smile. “The kids helped - gave me something to focus on at first.”

Shiro wants to disappear, turn invisible and slink away, taking all memory of this awkward, already-botched encounter with him. He hadn’t meant to drag up memories. Then again, his very presence was probably doing that. He cleared his throat, shifted his grip on his basket, and thought how best to get out of here without being rude - _I should let you get on with your shopping_ sounded about right. He opened his mouth to say it.

Mrs. Holt spoke first.

“They haven’t seen you in a very long time. Matt still asks about you from time to time, actually, but I couldn’t find a way to get hold of you - it was like you dropped off the planet. Do you have any plans for this evening?”

“Not really,” Shiro replied, awkwardly honest. Excuses rattled through his brain moments too late.

“Then you’re coming to dinner. I was just picking up a few things, then I’ll be getting the kids and going straight home to get it started.”

“I’m not sure I could…” he trailed off, uncertain how to phrase his hesitation when he’s not sure what the root of it even is. Mrs. Holt’s expression softened.

“Intrude?” she offered. That wasn’t quite it, but it rang close enough for Shiro to shrug helplessly. “Sam considered you family. So do I, and so do the kids. It won’t be an intrusion. In fact, I insist.”

Shiro continued to struggle.

“Tell you what,” she offered, “you can pay me back by coming with me to pick the kids up and by keeping them entertained while I cook. Deal?”

Shiro knew he wasn’t getting out of this one, not with any form of grace. He could either refuse outright and without any good, solid reason, throwing Mrs. Holt’s well-intentioned invitation away without a care, or he could accept and simply hope it wasn’t a terrible mistake.

“Okay. Deal.”

 

-

 

Mrs. Holt pulled up in front of a large, charming house painted in shades of white, blue, and pink, with a fenced-in yard and play equipment. A cheery sign outside proclaimed it a community children’s center, and it sat half a block away from an elementary school.

Pre-school, after school care, and emergency babysitting, or so Mrs. Holt had described it. Extremely reasonable prices and run by the most wonderful people…

Shiro followed her through the gate and up to the front door without quite knowing what he was doing there. He felt out of place - too scarred and broken for an environment this innocent and carefree. He heard laughter and playful shrieks through the door as Mrs. Holt rang the bell; he tucked his hands in his pockets and hung back.

A young woman answered the door. He was surprised; he’d expected someone older, on reflection, a matronly or grandmotherly figure.

“Hello, Allura,” Mrs. Holt said with a smile in her voice. “Are Katie and Matt ready to go?”

“If they aren’t yet, they should be soon,” the woman - Allura - replied. She opened the door a bit wider. “Come in to wait, just in case.”

“Thank you. We have company.” Mrs. Holt gestured back to Shiro as she stepped inside. “This is Takashi Shirogane, a family friend. Shiro, this is Allura Altea.”

Allura saved him the struggle of deciding between an awkward left handshake or an equally awkward right by offering her own hand first. Her eyes flicked down to his hand at the touch of carbon fiber rather than flesh, but she didn’t flinch or pull away too quickly, so it’s one of the nicer formal greetings Shiro’s had in a long time.

“Pleasure to meet you,” she said.

“Likewise,” Shiro replied. He didn’t know what else would have been said, because the pleasantries of introduction were cut off abruptly by a shrill cry of “ _Shiro!”_ and an impact against his legs that sent him staggering against the wall. He looked down on a mop of messy brown hair and a beaming bespectacled face.

“I told you he missed you,” Mrs. Holt said, picking up a little girl with the same brown hair and curious eyes. A tiny backpack with a stuffed cat sticking out of the top was strapped to Katie’s back. Allura smiled at them and excused herself to take care of her remaining charges.

Maybe the handshake had caused him to forget for a moment. Shiro reached automatically with his right hand to ruffle Matt’s hair, a greeting which had once been the beginnings of a habit, back before a single moment shook his life apart. The sight of grey and black fingers in place of a more natural tone brought him abruptly back to the present, and his hand paused just above the boy’s head.

“Down!” Katie suddenly ordered, swinging her tiny legs for freedom. The moment she was on the ground, she rushed over to Shiro, bypassing her brother entirely, and grabbed for his arm.

“Are you a robot?” she asked in awe, her eyes wide and shining as tiny fingers explored the flexible material and form-fit plating that covered his false hand.

“No, he’s Shiro,” Matt said, still clinging to Shiro’s legs. He was beginning to feel a little lost, so he put his left hand on Matt’s head for the customary ruffle and resigned his other hand to a four-year-old’s explorations.

“You’ll never get away from them now,” Mrs. Holt said in good humor as the children - Sam’s children - began to argue over what exactly made a robot a robot and whether a ‘Shiro’ could be one or not.

Shiro allowed himself to believe that maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

 

-

 

Time passed, and things settled into new routines, new flavors of normal. He finally found a job in backstock with a side of cashiering at a candle store in the local mall - not a particularly good or challenging job, certainly not a career, but still a _job_ \- and though he kept an eye out for better, more rewarding work, it was without the building sense of desperation and despair that had characterized his earlier searches. The Holts kept in close contact with him - he was a frequent dinner guest and tried to return the favor whenever he could, he’d bought fridge magnets specifically to pin up crayon drawings gifted to him by the kids (Katie’s offerings laid particular loving emphasis on the “robot arm,” and one showed it firing purple lasers for some reason), and he’d been stunned to learn that Mrs. Holt (Alice, becoming as much of a friend in her own right now as Sam had been) had put him down as someone Allura could release the kids to when Alice’s work ran long and late and he was available to pick them up in her place.

Allura started to become a friend as well, somewhere along the way. At first their interactions were brief and sparse, greetings and goodbyes within the few minutes it ever took for Matt and Katie to be ready to go on the occasional days when Shiro picked them up alongside or instead of Alice. Then, on one of the latter days, the kids had been in the middle of finger painting and weren’t ready to go right away. Shiro was willing to wait, and somehow waiting turned to talking turned to helping clean up a paint spill while Allura cleaned up the child who had been in the middle of it, and by the time the session ended and Matt and Katie were packed and ready Shiro had been somehow conscripted as Allura’s unofficial emergency helper.

“Normally my uncle, Coran, is here to give me a hand, but something came up in his garden club and he had to see to it,” she explained as she walked them to the door. “I thought I’d be fine on my own for the afternoon. I suppose I underestimated what children can get up to when given access to paint. Thank you for helping, by the way.”

“It was no problem,” Shiro replied, ushering the little ones into their shoes and out the door. “Anytime I’m not at my current job. It’s only part-time, so I have plenty left over each week. Seriously, if you ever need a hand…”

“I’ll keep that in mind; you might regret it,” Allura joked. Shiro doubted that. He had actually enjoyed the turn of the afternoon, as messy and on the edge of chaos as it had been. The kids were delights even when they were being little devils.

He had also doubted, at the time, that Allura would actually take him up on his offer. As much of a rapport as they had built and were building, he wasn’t particularly close or well-known to her. The finger painting episode had carried more marks of a one-time emergency in his mind, an “any port in a storm” scenario, than of a beginning.

Gradually, however, he began to get pulled into other small helpings when he was around (more and more often, it seemed, though it was really his own fault for volunteering so much; Alice had a lot going on, working at the hospital as she did, and he was frequently free and felt the need to somehow make up for what had happened over a year ago now). He would come to the bright little house and find himself willingly involved in chaperoning crafts events or making snacks or, once, helping break up a fight between two of the boys and sending them to opposing corners of the living room until they were ready to (sullenly and with much bad grace) apologize to each other. He met Coran, and supposed that he was Allura’s uncle through marriage, or adoption, or simple friendship with one or both of her parents, because the goofy man bore almost no physical resemblance to Allura herself. All of Allura’s most frequent charges came to recognize him, then greet him, then run up to him to show off their latest creations, acquisitions, discoveries, abilities, and games.

Then, one day, Allura called.

“I was wondering - are you in the market for another job?”

“Possibly,” he replied. “I’ve been asking for more hours at my current one but it’s stayed pretty flat. Do you know of something?”

“You could say that,” she said, amused and a little coy, and within the day Shiro was blinking down at an employment contract with Arus Street Children’s Daycare.

“We could do part-time or full, depending on what you’d prefer,” Allura said, a pen in her fingers. “Coran has been my full-time assistant here since I started it, but he’d like to move down to part time soon, to devote a little more energy to other projects of his. I could use the help, and I think you’re a good fit.”

A good fit. Shiro heard the whirring of his arm as he picked up the paper and looked at the hourly wage - definitely more than what he’s currently making - and details of employment. Full or part time, his choice. Time spent largely in the company of people who didn’t care that he was an ex-soldier with a medical discharge and a Galra Tech right arm - hell, half the kids seemed to think his arm was the best thing they’d seen since sliced bread.

He’d never imagined a future in childcare. Now it was somehow all he wanted.

“Just let me send in my notice, and I’m all yours,” he said.

Allura smiled, marked the contract as full-time, and extended the pen for his signature. He took it in his right hand and signed this into his life, clean and clear.

“Welcome aboard, Shiro,” she said, taking his hand and shaking it. “I’m glad to have you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This felt like a good point to stop, so here it ends. I'm afraid the mystery of what happened to Sam Holt remains at this point, as well as others. I mostly wrote this after describing how I, personally, would most likely do a modern no-space AU Shiro, and so the focus is largely on that, with the childcare AU aspects included because of some really cute art I've seen.
> 
> Some additional points of interest which I had in mind but didn't find a way to write in:  
> > Allura's father, Alfor, is CEO of Altea Incorporated, a rival technology company to Galra Tech.  
> > (Also the alliterative names are family tradition. There's pretty much always Al-something Alteas in the family.)  
> > Hunk was the kid who spilled finger paint all over himself. He shares a fascination with Katie for Shiro's "robot arm."  
> > Katie probably picks up the nickname "Pidge" for use among the kids here, though it's not shown in this fic. I liked the Lady and the Tramp explanation I saw put forth in another fic once, so that might be the source of it.  
> > Lance and Keith were the ones fighting. Lance pulled hair. Keith bit. I'm not sure what started it, but it was probably something pretty dumb, and it blew over fairly quickly after the time out and begrudging apologies.  
> > Those two are like brotherly rivals in this world - they'll fight each other over anything, but they'll also fight anyone who tries to pick a fight with the other.  
> > All the kids regularly play "Lions" in which they are said Lions and they pounce and playfight and take down bad guys, as kids do. Sometimes Shiro gets conscripted as the bad guy they have to take down. Other times they make him part of their pack ("Pride," Matt, the oldest, corrects them from time to time, but the little ones think that pack sounds better and so they don't always listen to him) and have him be their fearless leader, though he always asks for their 'advice' on what to do next (they're honestly the ones driving the pretend plot anyhow, and he encourages this). Allura is the Lion Princess when they pull her into it.  
> > Pidge is four, Matt is eight. The others are in between these ages.  
> > Shiro deserves happiness. That is all.


End file.
